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Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on Sunday's edition of ``60 Minutes,'' President Biden made a bizarre attempt to deny the American people's pain from Democrats' runaway inflation. After the latest nationwide data reported that consumer prices are rising at 8.3 percent year-on- year, the President suggested the country should be celebrating that they weren't rising even faster.

Working Americans aren't buying that insulting spin. Middle-class families aren't rejoicing that their daily life costs 8.3 percent more than it did a year ago and--listen to this--13.2 percent more than when President Biden took office.

In Parma, OH, one local grocer is working hard to keep her prices competitive but admits that ``[w]e have been getting hit with all of our suppliers with chicken, ground meat, everything.''

And in Fairfield County, the head of one organization that helps feed folks experiencing economic hardship put it this way:

I think things are going to get a whole lot darker and more bleak before they get a lot better. We're desperately worried about food.

Across the border in West Virginia, in Fayette County, persistent high prices have one retired grandmother worried about how the rest of her family is making ends meet.

She said:

I'm already stressed and stressed and trying to figure out how [my daughter is] going to pay to keep the lights on, get groceries, get school clothes on her kid's back.

In Perryopolis, PA, one shopper told a reporter that besides cutting back at the grocery store, she had taken on a second job of working nights at a warehouse to help feed her family of four.

This is what she had to say:

Clothing, gas, just about everything has gone up, and food is a large part of it.

Meanwhile, the head of a small manufacturer in Big Bend, WI, reports that amid price spikes and backed-up supply chains, ``trying to source products has been very difficult.''

In each of these States' cases--West Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania--one Senator tried to spare working families from all of this preventable pain. Each of those States has one Republican Senator who warned about inflation, who voted against inflation, and who voted for amendments that would have reduced inflation.

But, unfortunately, each one of those States also has a Democratic Senator who decided to vote in partisan lockstep to plow ahead with the trillions of dollars in reckless, inflationary spending. One Senator each from West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin cast the tie-breaking votes to bring this pain down on their citizens' heads. Now, sadly, they are all paying the price.

Working families in West Virginia are paying Washington Democrats' inflation tax to the tune of an extra $563 a month. Ohioans are paying $661 more. In Pennsylvania, inflation is squeezing folks for an extra $605; and in Wisconsin, it is $673. Families in these States are paying a painful price for the deciding vote that their Democratic Senators chose to cast.

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